WWW_Under_Attack

Hello,

I am trying to understand all the consequences of the RAND and definitely
vote against it.
I believe a sceneraio of coming events is simple: some corporations (one is
to be mentioned here: "old law breaker" according San Jose Mercury News) will
use RAND to put a paid standard on the Web and work further to promote it and
make it dominate using all possible means (like it was with MS IE, for
example).
It does not take much imagination, intelligence, experience and education to
understand what is going to happen then...

So I would like to put the issue in the wider context. This is context of
market development and it is not that painful.

There is a kind of marketing policy: to provide potential consumers with a
cheap stuff, to make them used to it and then to rise prices. In such way,
for example, was developed coffee consumers market in former USSR.

There is another example, more sophisticated: Windows OS with applications
actually up to date has been wide spread by "pirates" all over the world.
This means that owner hasn't spent a penny to advertise and otherwise promote
its product on global market. Now since job is done and customers got used to
the system a piracy issue raised up... No comments needed.

So what happened on the Web? This absolutely genius invention of Tim
Berners-Lee was devoted to free communication and developed by community.
WWW provided people with fantastic opportunities to communicate, to learn, to
create... All these opportunities are the best people generally need. I think
this actually  makes WWW grow so dramatically.
Since job has been done and Web huge potential became clear, predators smell
money and go ahead. They did not develop it, they did not promote it, they
are not concerned about our wishes, our freedom of speech, they just want to
exploit all these.

It is natural way for business, but what about us?

Now I want to put the issue in even wider context, more painful than previous
one: freedom of speech and cultural development.

	How many media providers are there on the American market?
	How many news paper publishers?
	How many Cable TV providers?
	How many Sattelite TV providers?  - Few of each kind.
Now, the question is:
	Is there a real ground for freedom of speech, but first Amendment in USA?
Another question is:
	Is there such a country - USA? Or all we have is United Corporations of
America?
They try to obsorb everything and do this until people and state can stand
it. Only if a state fights corporations society grows and develops. This
happened once with oil industry, with telecommunications...

	On September the 11-th America was attacked by terrorists.
	But America is under attack much longer, it is under attack of big
corporations, and worst of all it is under attack of media corporations.
	Freedom of speech is under attack.
	Culture is under attack.

I personally can do very little about this, but W3C plays important role to
very powerful and very important realm of today world: WWW.

We depend on you.

I appeal to all W3C stuff and Tim Berners-Lee personally:

	Please, do not give up our World Wide Web to corporations.

Sincerely,

Anatoly Volynets, California

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Received on Saturday, 29 September 2001 18:11:10 UTC